Cardiologist warns heart patients against gluttony

A 51-year-old man surnamed Wu (吳) was hospitalized in Kuang Tien General Hospital on Tuesday after a heart attack caused by eating too much hotpot over the five-day-long Lunar New Year holiday.

Kuang Tien General Hospital cardiologist Huang Ping-hsien (黃炳賢) said that even though Wu had a history of hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes and had heart stents, his family in Greater Taichung’s Shalu District (沙鹿) treated him to lamb hotpots, duck cooked with ginger and rice wine (薑母鴨) and other delicacies over the holidays.

Wu was in the middle of eating lunch when he felt a sudden, sharp pain in chest and weakness in his limbs, Huang said, adding that family members had immediately called an ambulance for him.

At the hospital, the doctors’ diagnosis was that a blood clot in a coronary stent had caused an acute myocardial infarction.

Wu was sent for surgery, where doctors performed cardiac catheteritization to dissolve the clot.

A nurse, Chen yu-fan (陳俞凡), performed CPR on Wu while he was in surgery, Huang said.

Stents are small mesh tubes that are implanted in weak or narrow arteries to improve blood flow.

The more stents a patient has, the higher the chance a blood clot may form, the doctor said.

When blood clots are accompanied by myocardial infarctions, patients may feel as if their chests are constricted, or, in extreme cases, experience persistent chest pain and an irregular heartbeat, he said.

Patients, especially the elderly, may go into shock or suffer congestive heart failure if they do not receive timely medical treatment, Huang said.

People with cardiopulmonary problems should try to keep warm and avoid eating a lot of meats, and their family members should be alert to complaints of sudden chest pain, breathing difficulties, feeling sick or cold sweats, he said.